


What time leaves behind

by beans_on_toast



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Death, Drabble, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Needs a Hug, Nile Freeman Needs a Hug, Nostalgia, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, Stargazing, Team as Family, but mostly canon compliant, different team members POV, immortal gays, in chapter 4 only, it's gonna get sappy ok?, this was supposed to be a one shot but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beans_on_toast/pseuds/beans_on_toast
Summary: Drabbles of the Old Guard found family.Reflections on family, home and the memories of the two.
Relationships: Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 25
Kudos: 130





	1. Dominoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nile finds something that reminds her of home and family.

Nile finds them in a dusty closet in the back of ‘her’ bedroom in this safe house. (No one mentions the obvious reason there are three bedrooms in this safe house. She carefully moves the half drunk liquor bottles under the bed and tries not to notice the books are all in French.) The box is broken, one corner has been taped with sellotape, but time has weathered that too. The cardboard is warped and bent, but still standing. Still holding its contents safe.

She traces her fingers over the pieces, yellowed and cracking with age. She holds one in her hand and it is cold to touch. Hard. Fragile (Is she thinking about what is in her hand now, or something else?) She doesn’t notice she’s crying until she feels the wetness on her wrist. Nicky finds her like that. His arms are warm and soft and she stares at the growing damp in his sleeve in bewilderment. He holds her and says nothing and that, in of itself, is something.

She lays them out on the table that night. Some pieces are missing and one tile has cracked in half. Nile stares at it, mesmerized. She remembered knocking them on the table in her grandmother’s living room and loving the solid sound. _These were made from bone_ , Nicky explains quietly. (Bones. She never realised but it makes sense. She swirls a tile around the boneyard lazily. _Bones._ )

They generously let her explain the rules with soft smiles. (No one mentions they are older than the word for the game itself.) They laugh and tease. She has to tell Joe off for placing his tiles on Nicky’s train. _But everything we have is each other’s, little sister._ She doesn’t catch herself the first, second, sixth time she says them. But halfway through a story, she realises she’s said their names more this evening than in the months before and her voice catches.

There is a brush on her wrist, a gentle tap with a foot, a shoulder presses against hers. It’s Joe, gentle, loving, _kind_ Joe, who takes her hand. _These were Booker’s_. She squeezes back. 

_Name the ghosts_ , he’s saying without saying, _they are welcome here_. ( _We are family_ is what she hears.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't remember the rules to pinochle well enough, so we have to go with deeply nostalgic family game number 2.


	2. Shrove Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker and Nile discover an English tradition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set after Booker's exile. Also, assuming it's not 100 years long (I'm going for 10?ish). Let's just assume he got some therapy and is less of a sad French man.

Of course, someone at the bar had mentioned it, almost in passing. And Nile’s eyes had lit up and the conversation had taken _the turn._

He probably should warn Copley about the CCTV at the Tesco. How they’d laughed and swung each other through the aisles. How she’d tried to move his ingredients out of the basket without him noticing and he’d held up a sad little package of baklava that had her laughing so hard she nearly cried. How’d they’d both forgotten what money to use and he’d handed the very lovely, very confused cashier a franc. _‘They have euros now Seb!’ She’d crowed and flicked his nose. ‘Umm, we use pounds here.’ The poor cashier had interjected._ There would be more cameras, as they’d wandered home, arms slung around each other. Tripping and catching each other in turn. Laughing so freely his lungs ached from it.

This, he realised in retrospect, may not have been his best idea. He realised it somewhere between Nile catching her arm on the hot skillet _again_ ( _‘Would you just let me do it?’ He sighed. ‘You don’t know how to do it!’ She snorted._ ) and the sound of soft footsteps behind them.

They had hardly been quiet. They had been _trying_ , in that undoubtedly earnest way of those who had imbibed too much, but he knew they hadn’t been succeeding. He just had found it hard to care, as he and Nile had fallen into the old familiar banter. ( _I thought you were the brains of this outfit?_ ) She was still so young, still had so much to experience. She didn’t have thousands of years on him, memories of places no longer on any map and languages no longer spoken. She made him feel _alive_.

It was Nicky now, of course, who found them giggling over the stove, Nile licking her forearm even though the burn had already healed. They looked at him like two naughty children caught out. And the look Nicky gave back was so _fond_ , Booker felt his heart stop.

( _Joe had been easy, like a fire, he’d thought. Quick to anger, quick to forgive. But Nicky? Well, there was a reason Nicky was a sniper. And he’d born it without complaint because he deserved it._ )

Nicky called them children in Italian as he ushered them out of the way and started the coffee. He laughed with them as he finished cooking, as they tried to explain. _‘But pancakes aren’t savory Nicky, they’re sweet,’ Nile moaned. ‘Pancakes are, but I made galette bretonnes,’ Booker teased_. Joe came through, shuffling and yawning. He wrapped his arms around his husband and they swayed as Nicky plated up.

It was beautifully, gloriously, painfully domestic. Nile told of lazy Saturday mornings at her grandmother’s house. Nicky and Joe spoke of feeding each other bites of sweet crepes as they walked down the Seine on their twenty fourth honeymoon. And Booker admitted that American pancakes weren’t that bad. _‘Though there is a definite emphasis on the cake part.’_

Once or twice, _perhaps_ , he thought on where he learned the recipe or who else liked mushrooms on his galettes instead of ham. _Maybe_ the warm feeling of family reminded him of other quiet mornings, lifetimes ago. But Nile was still tucked up against him, warm coffee in her hands. Across from them, his brothers were smiling at them. _At him_. And for the first time in a long time, Sebastien Le Livre thought this may not have been the worst idea he’s ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Dominoes was meant to be stand alone, but hey! It's still September and I'm still feeling nostalgic.
> 
> Anyway, my son asked for pancakes for lunch and I knew he meant American pancakes and not British ones (read: crepes) despite having lived his whole life in the UK, so this happened!
> 
> I maintain that pancakes should not be SAVOURY (though they should be enjoyed with savoury bacon). However, my French flatmate introduced me to galette bretonnes and I do like them with ham and cheese.


	3. Firmament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quynh looks at the stars for the first time in centuries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as usual, I saw [some beautiful art](https://angels-and-aliens.tumblr.com/post/633897236258062336/stargazing-the-queer-immortal-quartet-we-dont) and I had to write something about it (it's stunning, go look at it).
> 
> Have some soft, gay, immortal couples and found family love.

Her memories, she is discovering, did not escape the cage with her. Not wholly. She is not _whole_. She is a ghost. She wants, so badly. She _wants_. She grasps and searches. The silence falls heavy, expectant. Waiting for her. They waited for her ( _but they did not look for you,_ the foul, vicious part of her whispers). They wait for her now and it chafes. For centuries, for _millennia_ , they moved in tandem. A great dance, a great love. She was the other half of a soul. She was a part of a family. She was. She was...

She wishes to be again.

She does not name the stars. She knows the names for them. She knows them in languages long dead. But she cannot bring the names to her lips now. They tumble free when they wish, often when she least expects it. Most often at night, in Andromache’s arms. In a tumble of languages and words, for those glorious moments, she just _is_.

Andromache finds her first, swearing as she catches her hip on the roof, pulling herself with those arms that still set Quỳnh’s pulse racing. To be caged by them is not to be trapped, but to be free. She is _home_ there.

The boys come next; Nicolò smiling quietly and Yusuf yawning. She is struck, as always, by them; two halves of a whole. To have been reborn as one and live forever besides one another, it is a blessing and a balm to her soul. There is yet order in the madness when her brothers are there, moving as one.

The night is cold, but clear. The heavens stretching above them. Andromache reaches and Quỳnh is there. Words not spoken but answered none the less. Nicolò curls to her side, her head tucked carefully under his chin. Yusuf’s hand stretches over him and rests on her. Tied together. A family.

Yusuf names the stars. In the languages she speaks and some she does not. The words tumble and break upon her ears. Loud and buzzing and overwhelming after so long in silence. His arm stretches above them, against the backdrop of space too big to fathom. 

She feels untethered. Too big, too much, too _everything_. She feels as though she had been pressed into the smallest part of herself. Pushed and squeezed and forced into a new shape. She is not who she was. The Quỳnh shaped space in her family sits open but she no longer fits. She was not enough and now she is too much. 

Andromache’s arms tighten. A lifeline, holding her together. Holding the pieces of Quỳnh in one place till she can start to heal. Nicolò’s breath is hot on her cheek, his hand trailing a soothing pattern down her arm. Yusuf twists his fingers in hers, his voice never breaking. 

Under the endless sky, her family holds her close. She remembers. She is safe. She is loved. She is _home._


	4. just let me hear your voice (just one more time)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe is grieving and all he wants to do is hear Nicky's voice one more time.
> 
> (CW: Permanent Major Character Death before the start of the fic)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to reiterate: This is about grieving the death of a loved one. This is chapter is about dealing with a major character death (that has already happened). Please read with caution.
> 
> These are just a series of drabbles, so you can easily skip this and not miss anything.

A click. A beat. 

_Nile, stop. No it just beeped at me… don’t...Sorella..._

It feels like an ache most days. Deep and abiding. A bruise on his heart that stays and stays and _stays_. Nile’s hand finds his shoulder when he presses against his chest. His heart beats under his palm. It is a love song. He is here. He holds him here. Nile is kind, her fingers tight against his skin. He mimics her breaths. In and out. It isn’t _right_ , but it will do.

_Sì, sì. I know how it works. Hello Joe, I hope you get this before we get home._

It builds, on days like this. He doesn’t even feel it, doesn’t notice the signs. Booker does. Booker gently puts back the second mug he pulled down for coffee. Booker sits at the chair across from him at the table. The knees and feet knock in the wrong place. Booker puts the television up too loud, so Joe doesn’t think to turn his head. So he can’t look to his side and offer a joke. Booker taps his fingers nervously against his glass. He always salutes, as if he sees him too.

_...Nile...please! I am sorry, my heart. Nile wanted to grab something. Ack, I did not. Joe I did-- do not lie to my husband._

_A laugh._

_We will be home soon!_

He is splitting open. The pit in his stomach grows and rends and he falls apart. A soft hand on his leg, a warm body along his side. He _sobs_. Great, heaving breaths. He shudders apart. One hand presses to his heart as if it could stop the great, broken chasm inside him. As if there is anyone who could hold him together when he is so broken. They share a look over his head and he _knows_. He should stop this. He should. He can stop.

_An exhale. A lowered voice._

_I’ve missed you. I love you Yusuf._

A beat. A click.

_I’ve missed you. I love you Yusuf._

He gasps, cracks along the seams and falls. He shivers. He needs… he just _needs_...

_I love you Yusuf_

_I love you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was very much for me. I have a saved voicemail from my mother and sometimes, all I want is to hear her voice again. The new year is always a very nostalgic time.
> 
> I've already written another drabble for this and it's not nearly as angsty.
> 
> I hope you are all taking care of yourselves and looking out for one another.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://hyper-fixate.tumblr.com/) if you want.


End file.
